Parents

Many people are parents. Many parents are stupid. They do not know their children any better than they know the milkman. They are responsible for children being called such insulting names as kiddies, brats, little lambs, little nuisances. They either display their children to visitors like new phonograph records or put them in corners like broken bridge tables. The old practice of cuffing children has given way to almost complete indifference. Parents who can afford a nursemaid seldom see their small children more than once or twice a day. Then, when a child gets older he is sent away to school. He returns and finds his parents vaguely familiar, like the clock on the mantelpiece, and about as interesting as the 1913 volumes of the Atlantic Monthly on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.

There are also a few homes where children are reared so officiously that they never quite get rid of that run-to-mother look. Their parents are constantly trying out "systems" on them, nagging them, classifying them, buying for them strange "cultural" toys and corrective devices (such as aluminum rings to prevent sucking of thumbs).

Thus, parenthood--"the greatest profession on earth"--as sharp critics see it. If these critics had visited the Parents' Exposition at the Grand Central Palace in Manhattan last week, they would have found little to contradict their previous observations. Exhibitions of groceries, toys, corrective literature, propaganda were there aplenty. Parents said: "Don't touch that;" and children clamored for ice cream. Then there arose a tiff between eminent parents; the officials of the Parents' Exposition, at the suggestion of New York Superintendent of Schools William J. O'Shea, refused to allow the American Birth Control League to exhibit its wares at. the Grand Central Palace. So the A.B.C.L. set up its headquarters across the street in a dirty little vacant restaurant, displaying the following placard:

FORCED OUT OF

The Parents' Exposition,

The American Birth Control Exhibit

Is Now Here

COME IN

Mrs. Margaret Sanger, president of the A.B.C.L., attributed the ousting of her organization to Roman Catholic "bigotry and usurpation of power." She said that Governor Alfred Emanuel Smith was at the bottom of it all, flayed him roundly in a public statement.

What the Parents' Exposition lacked was an adequate demonstration of methods actually practiced by conscientious modern mothers. The nearest approach to this was a Co-operative Consultation booth, where parents were urged by a sign to "Come in and talk it over." Individual problems were discussed and sound advice given. But, for conciseness, nothing at the exposition equalled the remark which one charming modern mother made as she was leaving the Grand Central Palace: "What do I do with my little boy? Practically nothing. I read to him and he reads to me. I play games with him. When he acts up, I say to him: 'Hey, do you think that's nice?' "